A Showcase Of Lop-Sided Logic And Crass Political Opportunism
Ajit Rupasinghe
The on-going debate on the presidential election could be comprehended in terms of two dominant intellectual trends: Lop-sided logic and crass political opportunism. The debate centers on which of the main contenders –Mahinda Rajapaksa (MR) or Maitripala Sirisena (MS) – offers the best hope of stability, security, development and democracy. For the purpose of convenience and clear demarcation, I shall consider the arguments put forward by Dr. Dayan Jayatilleka who speaks on behalf of MR and Dr. Kumar David on behalf of the common candidate, MS. DJ’s argument in defense of MR is a case of crass political opportunism and proven sycophancy, while KD’s argument is one of myopic, lop-sided Trotskyite logic.
DJ would have us put the positive and negative aspects of MR on a scale. This is to demonstrate that the positive far outweighs the negative. What slavish intellectual bankruptcy! What a disgusting manner to sing for one’s supper! MR is on record for having raised corruption, nepotism, abuse of power and violation of human and democratic rights to unprecedented astronomical heights. He has raised the banner of supremacist chauvinism and generalized militarism as no other. He has concentrated state power under his hegemonic dynastic rule and exercised the naked terrorist dictatorship of the bourgeoisie over the people with unparalleled brutality. He has brought shame and infamy upon the country as no other regime. The moral decomposition under his watch is cancerous and putrid. For the sake of his survival, MR has dragged the people into the jaws of inter-imperialist geo-strategic contention and sliced up and sold out the country to international and regional predator powers as never before in our history. No one has exploited and perverted Buddhism and the Dhamma and turned it into an ideology of neo-fascist hegemony. MR has fatally divided, fractured and polarized society vertically and horizontally almost irrevocably. MR will go down in history and straight into its dust-bin for having exercised the most bloody tyrannical terrorist dictatorship over the people. For the war-mongering broker that DJ is, the only saving virtue of his Master is that MR led a war of annihilation against the LTTE. Not withstanding all the genocidal terrorist crimes that it entailed. If, as he claims, the LTTE was a terrorist-fascist force, then it could only have been fathered by a terrorist-fascist State. Then, what is the status of DJ, who is a foremost apologist and ideologue of that state and Regime? But, the logic of historical causality is beyond such a craven militarist who has made sophistic sycophancy his career model.Read More